


call it magic when i'm next to you

by streimel



Series: Gamble the World On You (Blackjack) [6]
Category: Infinite (Band)
Genre: M/M, Magic, yer a wizard Yeol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streimel/pseuds/streimel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sungyeol tests out his magical prowess. Being Sungyeol, naturally everything goes straight to hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	call it magic when i'm next to you

**Author's Note:**

> I only half proofread this? I'll come back and edit this over the weekend? Maybe?
> 
> This is really stupid?
> 
> lots of choice (read: bad) language ahead

"Hurry up, man. I don't want anyone seeing us."

Sungyeol shoots a look over his shoulder, but Woohyun's sure they're not being followed; he hasn't seen anyone since they turned off the main road.

"You know, the two of us going out together in the middle of the day probably doesn't help your attempt at anonymity. Especially since we took the leisurely way of public transit, and I'd bet that group of middle school girls weren't holding up their cameras just to check themselves out like they were pretending-"

"Shut up, Woohyun!"

"I was just pointing it out, in case you wanted to turn back at the last moment. Perhaps if you weren't so tall you wouldn't stand out so much..."

"And maybe if you weren't so short-"

"Yeah? What then?"

"Never mind..." Sungyeol mumbles, quickening his pace so Woohyun has to double his efforts to keep up.

They lapse into silence, Woohyun staring at the back of Sungyeol's dumbass head and debating what he can nag out of him in repayment for accompanying him. They continue turning down this alleyway and that, venturing further and further away from any semblance of civilization, and after a while, Woohyun begins to fear for his welfare as even the din of the city disappears.

"Did you get us lost, you -"

Sungyeol cuts him off, shooting him the bird over his shoulder. "It's just down at the end of the street, according to my phone. Don't doubt me."

"I'm surprised we get service out here. I thought we fell down the rabbit hole and into Hell or something."

"Oh my god, can you do anything besides complain?"

"You know, I do a little singing on the side sometimes. I'm kind of a big deal in some circles, and it pays the bills, so I have that going for me and-"

Sungyeol slaps a hand on his chest, and before he can open his mouth to start whining, Sungyeol whispers "we made it."

The place is unassuming, if you consider the rest of the street looks like it's been ripped directly out of a post-apocalyptic horror movie, and Woohyun feels an odd sense of connection to Harry Potter that one time he ended up on Knockturn Alley, except there aren't sketchy people around to frighten him.

But there is a magic shop.

"Witch Yoo's Potions 'n' Things?" he reads aloud almost comically, waiting for a camera crew and maybe Sunggyu or something to pop out from behind the trash can down the road, because this has to be a joke. It has to be.

Except Sungyeol has that gleam in his eyes, the pure unadulterated joy of a small child that he's never been able to suppress, and holy shit, Sungyeol really just dragged him halfway across Seoul to go to a damn magic shop.

This is not a joke. This is 100% real life, brought to you today by Lee Sungyeol.

"I thought you said we were going to 'specialty shop'," he muses, and at least Sungyeol has the decency to shoot him a sheepish look that will be as close to any sort of apology as he's going to get.

"I mean, technically," Sungyeol coughs awkwardly, " _technically_ , it is a specialty shop...of sorts."

"You know, I had thought perhaps you'd gained a sudden interest in antiques, or maybe even model collecting, but magic? And here? You couldn't find one closer to the apartment? Perhaps stop at the magic aisle in HomePlus or something? Dammit, Sungyeol! We're about five seconds from walking into some vortex into another dimension and never returning all because you want some crystal amulets or rigged deck of cards or something?"

"No, of course not." Sungyeol sounds taken aback by the insinuation.

"Oh, okay. So what are we here for then, exactly?"

"A love potion."

Woohyun would laugh, but Sungyeol has that super serious look on his face, the one he wore for three months when he argued with everyone and God himself that he should get a monkey. He can't win this. Sungyeol is going to go into this hovel they've arrived at and not leave until he has a love potion in hand. They're fucked.

"A love potion. And to whom, might I ask, are you going to give a love potion?"

Sungyeol gives him an obvious look, and he shoots him one of disgust in return.

" _Her_?"

"Who else?"

"Literally  _anyone_  else. Sungyeol, she has a boyfriend!"

"Exactly my point, Sherlock."

"Sungyeol-"

"Okay, I'm going in. You can stay out here if you want. Or leave, I don't care. You're your own person. Bye, Woohyun."

Woohyun wouldn't be caught dead standing out here alone (or, better yet, would probably end up dead if he did), and he knows there's no way Sungyeol, the most stubborn asshole in the world, is going to change his mind. He consoles himself with the fact that magic isn't real anyway, and he figures there's no harm in indulging Sungyeol and letting him dream for a moment. He'll attempt his shenanigans and she'll continue to mostly ignore him like she has for the last three years and everything will proceed as normal.

 _What's the worst that could possibly happen?_  he thinks to himself as Sungyeol opens the door.

* * *

The shop is a slight improvement to the outside environment (though it would have taken a considerable effort to be worse), and Woohyun sits himself on the edge of a particularly run down couch as Sungyeol rings a bell left on the counter. The place is relatively decent, though covered in a fine layer of dust as if no has been inside in the last twenty years or so, and a delicate set of baubles and glasses adorn various shelves around the room. Underneath it all, Woohyun can smell a deep, earthy scent, like a forest after the rain, and beyond that, something that vaguely reminds him of wet socks, but he tries not to think about it for too long.

Sungyeol doesn't join him, obviously still miffed by the previous judgement, and Woohyun knows better than to push it with him when he's like, so they wait in silence. Woohyun wonders idly if perhaps Witch Yoo had gone to lunch, or maybe whisked off on her broom, never to return. He follows that line of thought, sincerely hoping it's something of the sort, when she seemingly appears out of thin air, making Sungyeol nearly fall over and him squeal in a most unbecoming way. She's decidedly not witch like, no boils on her nose or frizzled hair going every which way; if anything, she looks like just a regular middle-aged woman, someone he might see in the grocery store buying toilet paper like anyone else.

"Welcome, friends, to my shop of magic!" she says excitedly (too excitedly for Woohyun's taste). "So glad to have visitors to my little place out here. How may I assist you today?"

Sungyeol, persistent and blunt as always, wastes no time in small talk, and immediately gets down to business. "I need a love potion, preferably a strong one. I'll need it."

The witch, or Ms. Yoo, whatever her preferred nomenclature, looks at Sungyeol like he's simply talking nonsense, and Woohyun looks towards the sky, questioning God and what great sin he committed to be stuck here with these two people. Surely, this is some torturous punishment conceived for previous grievances from another lifetime.

"My dear," she begins sympathetically, patting Sungyeol's hand like a small child who had just dropped their ice cream. "Love potions simply aren't done anymore. It's really quite a social faux pas nowadays."

Woohyun sees the metaphorical scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough splatter on the ground as Sungyeol's face falls, and he belatedly realizes he should have recorded this whole thing and sent it to the rest of the gang for priceless snarking opportunities later. Still, there's a great sense of relief within him at this turn of events, and he stands, ready to sling an arm Sungyeol's shoulders and whisper some encouraging bullshit as he wheels his ass out of here and back home. He almost does it, too, when she interrupts his plans.

"You know, there was just such a business of getting it in someone's tea, and someone always lost the bottle and complained, so on and so forth, however, there have been great improvements in love incantations, and my own tried and true method boasts a 86% success rate!"

Woohyun cannot believe this is real life. Woohyun will not believe this is real life. Woohyun is thirteen seconds away from texting Sunggyu or Kibum or literally even the guy who delivers the ddeokbokki to their apartment to come save him, ASAP, but then he realizes he will have to explain why he's in need of rescue, and no one else could believe this either. He is trapped by the sheer ludicrousness that Sungyeol has gotten him into. He will never, ever forgive Sungyeol, as long as he lives.

 **Ever**.

"I'll take it," Sungyeol announces triumphantly, a shit-eating grin shot Woohyun's way, and he barely even balks when she asks for 100,000 won. So Woohyun balks for him.

"That is...quite a bit of money for some words."

Both Sungyeol and the witch give him a particularly nasty look, and she simply sniffs in response.

"You know, this spell is a renewable resource. You can use it again and again. It never expires. It never goes bad."

"But doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a love spell to begin with? Isn't love supposed to forever?"

"Nothing is forever, my dear boy. Not unless you really work at it, and I don't think people really work at staying in love anymore. Your results may vary."

She takes her time going over the pronunciation of each word with Sungyeol, the words from some ancient language that Woohyun swears sounds like poorly translated Dutch in phonetic Korean, and then they're on their way, Sungyeol practically floating on a cloud above him in exuberance.

"This is a great day, Woohyun. A very great day."

This is the worst day of Woohyun's entire life.

* * *

For about, oh, three weeks or so.

In the meantime, Woohyun steers clear of Sungyeol, not out of lasting anger, but mostly out of an inability to comprehend in his mind the imbecilic man-child with a penchant for terrible, horrible decisions that is Sungyeol to the core. Every time he interacts with him, he is forced to remember the overzealous life-planning Sungyeol had done on the way back home, dreams of weddings with wallpaper beautiful enough to make him cry and exactly two children, names already picked out with back-ups just in case.

It's simply too much to handle.

Woohyun's become incredibly hesitant to go anywhere alone with Sungyeol, mostly out of a fear of more forthcoming shenanigans or being forced to listen to more diatribes about the future window valances that are going in Sungyeol's house once he gets married. He's not even sure how he falls for it, but he somehow ends up trekking down a hallway at KBS after their stage is over, enticed by the promise of free sushi in the cafeteria. It isn't until Sungyeol stops him outside someone else's waiting room that he realizes the trap he's fallen into quite by mistake.

"Oh my g- Sungyeol!"

"Look, look," Sungyeol holds up a placating hand. "Just do me a favor real quick and-"

"No."

"And I will-"

"No."

"I'll buy you-"

"Don't care."

"But-"

"Goddammit, no Sungyeol!"

It doesn't end up being a 'no' as it turns out, because the door opens and the girls start coming out, and he's forced to make polite conversation with two of them, the ones he's closest to, as Sungyeol eagerly anticipates the arrival of his object of affection, apparently still getting ready. The girls are genuinely happy to see him, and he puts on a fake smile, just barely restraining his urge to punch Sungyeol in the face repeatedly.

When she comes out, urged by a rushed manager with the rest of the group down the hallway, Sungyeol starts muttering in a way Woohyun is sure probably makes him look strange as fuck, and then Sungyeol squeezes his eyes tight, as if waiting for magical sparkles to come rain down upon him or something. When they pop open, he immediately looks toward her, standing down the hall getting her mic attached, and he moves to greet her properly, arms open as if she will run directly into his embrace.

At least, that was the intent.

Sungyeol gets about a meter away from where they were standing when Woohyun tumbles into his back, knocking them both down. It knocks the wind out of him, and he doesn't move, even when a pair of heeled feet step into his line of vision.

"Uhm, are you two okay?"

Sungyeol is the very opposite okay, not only because Woohyun has apparently decided to sabotage him in his moment of glory, but more importantly, because the goddess incarnate before him is looking at him with a certain amount of revulsion that he finds hard to swallow.

"Look, uh, please don't do these types of things for my attention. It's...not attractive."

Sungyeol doesn't even care about getting up anymore, hoping the floor will just open up and swallow him right there as she walks away, and he waits until everyone clears out, not without a curious look or two over some shoulders, before rolling Woohyun off of him.

They both get up, a little awkwardly, and Sungyeol doesn't even know what in the hell he's supposed to do now, until Woohyun opens that huge mouth of his and starts making everything a thousand times worse, like always.

"Uhm, you sure that wasn't a hate spell, because..."

He doesn't mean to push him, per se. What he really means to do it just maybe grab on to his shirt collar and shake him until he shuts up for just one moment, but in his haste he kind of misjudges his own force, and then he's propelling Woohyun backwards.

And he goes with him.

It doesn't make sense, simply put. He's chest to chest, nose to nose with a wide-eyed Woohyun, but it doesn't figure out why. It was like someone pushed him from behind, sliding something across his ankles to trip him up. Like Woohyun was a ball and he the chain, dragged along for the ride. Like magnets.

He tries to push off of Woohyun, to get some distance between them because being dick to dick was a little intense for him at the moment, but he can only get so far before he's simply  _stuck_. Immovable. Weighed down by some invisible force.

Or a visible one.

He drags Woohyun up into standing, trying to move away again with a sudden rush of movement, and Woohyun trips forward into his arms. Sungyeol rights him again, moving to the side this time, but Woohyun's propelled in the same direction. He can't get away from Woohyun.

"Sungyeol.  _Sungyeol_." Woohyun sounds borderline hysterical, which is okay, because at least they can be hysterical together as the bubble of terror starts rising in his throat. "What. Did. You.  **Do**?"

Sungyeol recalls something he only half-listened to that the witch had said, some translation of the spell that talked about the desire to be near or something, and he kind of laughs as he explains it to Woohyun, who doesn't find nearly as much humor in that tidbit as he does. It's a moment of philosophical thought for him, the meaning of the spell and the limitations of it as Woohyun dives into him, this time intentionally, and begins choking him out. He wonders if Woohyun would have to drag around his dead body if he killed him right here, or if the spell would be immediately broken, before managing to pry Woohyun's little fingers off his neck.

"Don't kill me," he wheezes sincerely as Woohyun sits back, and Woohyun looks like he's considerably weighing the pros and cons of just the activity at the moment. There's nothing he can say to make it better, so he goes with the only option they have, really.

"We'll go back. Immediately."

"No shit. Too bad immediately won't be for, hm, three days? Four days? We're in the middle of a comeback, Sungyeol! We are booked solid. Tell me when we're going to just sprint away for a leisurely stroll back into the seventh circle of Hell to break this stupid curse. How are we even supposed to dance when we can't move away from each other? We are fucked!"

"Well...uhhh?" Sungyeol tries to answer, head lolling back and forth as Woohyun shakes him violently enough that his teeth chatter.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe you," Woohyun moans, dropping his hands to his sides and turning to walk away before realizing it's impossible. "What have I done to deserve this, God? Have I not been a good person? Have I not tried to make the world better? Why? Why?"

Sungyeol knows Woohyun wasn't talking to him, but it does provoke some of his own thoughts in his mind. "That's actually a good question, if you think about it. Maybe because you were standing next to me. I mean, there wasn't, like, an option to insert a name or anything, so maybe the spell thought I meant you. Huh."

"Shut up, Sungyeol! Just shut up! If we are...oh, fuck, stuck together like this, you are hereby banned from talking. Whatsoever. No excuses."

Sungyeol complies for the moment, just because he knows Woohyun can't stop running his mouth and will be engaging him in a conversation in five minutes or less anyways, and they get themselves up again, working out how to walk together without tripping each other up. They manage okay down the hall, only faltering when Sungyeol stops abruptly. It feels odd, like a large hula hoop is encircled around them on all sides, and the weight bites into Sungyeol's skin as Woohyun tries to push forward. Woohyun turns around to look at him, and he points to the bathroom sign, trying to maintain his silence.

"No. Absolutely not."

Sungyeol shrugs, pushing into the door anyways, and Woohyun scoots forward on his tippy toes as the force propels him to move.

"Fuck you, Sungyeol."

* * *

A meter is a good amount of space in the van, and Woohyun slides into the middle, leaving Sungyeol the seat behind him. They can apparently move within the radius of one another, but not beyond that without one dragging the other along for the ride, and Woohyun's just glad he doesn't have to look at Sungyeol for a good thirty minutes or so. The temporary reprieve, slight at best, is good enough, and Woohyun's lulled to sleep by the rocking of the van as they travel along to some radio show. He's almost there, head falling forward to rest on upturned knees, when he hears something hit the headrest behind him and Myungsoo utter a muffled curse.

"Shit, you okay?"

His head pulls up with an uncomfortable amount of pressure, and he turns around the find Myungsoo pushing Sungyeol back into his own seat. Sungyeol gives him a sheepish look, and he just sighs, not missing the odd stare Myungsoo sends between them.

The radio show director tries to get Sungyeol on one side and Woohyun on the other, but they insist they should sit next to each other, as quietly as possible, trying not to draw the attention of the other members as they all get set up for the show. They've always gotten along, relatively speaking, but Woohyun's been on this fan service cycle with Dongwoo and Sungyeol and Sungjong have been getting a lot of love recently and it's just all part of the overly complicated balance of getting it right. They'll probably make the fan sites talk as they're forced to sit a little closer to each than normal, but it is what it is.

It's not so bad, all things considered, because they're forced to be together all day as is, so it's easy to pretend and be happy and sincere in front of everyone until they get home. It's just another day of work under their belts, squeezed together in the middle of the rest of the guys as they crowd through the sea of fans back to the van like nothing in the world is wrong. And then it all disintegrates into a bloody mess the moment they get home.

"I'm- we're sleeping in my room, I guess. God, this is terrible."

"Okay, but can I- uh, we...shower first?"

Woohyun gives him a look like he must be kidding, and then realizes belatedly he's not.

"No."

"Woohyun."

"We'll...shower in the morning."

"But I shower at night..." Sungyeol pouts, and Woohyun's blood boils.

"Sungyeol," Woohyun grinds out, "it is 2 am, I am exhausted, and you got us into this mess, so I deserve to make the decisions. We are going to sleep.  **Now**."

There's a rare streak of obedience within Sungyeol today, and he obliges without further commentary, following Woohyun into his room and waiting patiently for further instruction. Neither of them seem to know how to approach how this is going to work, and there's a weird gap between them that usually isn't present. They've slept next to each other a million times, gone to the bathroom together and showered together and seen pretty much everything there is to see and yet it's so much more comfortable when they had a choice. Now, thrown together quite literally by force, there's a heavy unease in the motions of the day.

"Look, I don't- I'm not going to make you sleep on the floor. Mostly because it probably wouldn't work unless you slept under my bed. So, just...I don't know. Hop on I guess."

Woohyun's still angry as hell, and he instantly turns his back to Sungyeol as Sungyeol gets comfortable, skin pressed together as they lay back to back. He's more than tired, and regretting the fact they'll have to be up in a mere four hours; still, he finds sleep evasive, even when Sungyeol settles into it, creating a comfortably warm heat beside him. He wants to toss and turn, but he can only move so much before he throws caution by the way side and turns to face Sungyeol's back. Sungyeol is actually quite cuddly, he finds out, and he scoots in a little, blaming poor sleep as of late for his questionable decisions.

He feels not so terrible when he wakes up, all things considered, and he leaves the arm that wrapped itself around Sungyeol's waist in its place, wanting this moment to last just a little longer. Sungyeol's stomach rises steadily against the palm of his hand, and even though he's so mad at him, angrier than ever before, he worries about how Sungyeol is feeling, too. All yesterday, Sungyeol was obedient, calm and collected, and he knows better than to trust it; Sungyeol is either planning something, or completely in shock.

It's getting close to the point that they absolutely must get up and get ready, and Woohyun peeks over Sungyeol's shoulder, intent on waking him up but finding him awake and alert already. The minute their eyes meet, Sungyeol rolls out from under his hand in surprise, sliding off the bed and taking Woohyun with him.

"Ah, fuck," Sungyeol groans as Woohyun lands on top of him, and Woohyun's sure something pressing into his stomach isn't Sungyeol's hipbone, but he rolls of Sungyeol in an instant, unable to meet his eyes.

"Uh, shower?"

"Yeah, shower."

Sungyeol offers to skip it, turning away so he can undress in privacy even though there's never been a need for it before, and he mumbles something about time, because they really do need to hurry up. He edges in first, leaving Sungyeol room to get undressed too, and then Sungyeol slides in, still back to back as they try to share the water.

"What are we going to do?"

He doesn't necessarily expect an answer, but they're short on time with no way to escape, and at the very least, they're set to perform at 3:30. They might be able to pull it off until then, but there's no way they can go on stage when they can't get more than three feet away from each other, and the overwhelming anxiety that's growing within in makes him want to puke and cry at the same time.

"I can try calling her, I guess." Sungyeol sounds like he's desperately trying to hide some reluctance, and that does little to help calm down.

"What, witches have phones now?"

"It's the 21st century, Woohyun. What else would they use? Besides, she had a number on her website."

"A website too? Fucking unbelievable..." he mutters to himself, scrubbing his face too hard just to make sure this is real life and not a terrible nightmare. Sungyeol's proposition doesn't give him any peace of mind, but at this point, he doesn't have a hell of a lot of choices.

He stares at the water circling the drain at his feet, needing to ask but not wanting to know the answer. "What happens if she doesn't answer? What happens if we can't get to her before we're supposed to perform?"

The only sound he hears for a while is just the showerhead raining down on the tile, and eventually he realizes Sungyeol just doesn't have an answer to give him.

* * *

The make-up woman is giving him odd looks, but he just ignores it.

Of course, it isn't normal for him to sit perched on the corner of her workbench as she works on Sungyeol, but he can't really help it.  _Look, lady, I don't want to be sitting here either_ , he tries to mentally convey to her. Luckily, it's 6:45 am, and not a lot of mental activity seems to be going on at the moment; no one in the band seems to notice his and Sungyeol's sudden proximity issues (mostly because all of them are asleep in one fashion or another, either in the make-up chair or on the couch in the middle of the room). The managers have approximately 856 things on their minds, so there's no acknowledgement from them either. It's just him, Sungyeol, and the make-up woman, who tramples on his toes almost certainly to prove a point.

"Did you call yet?"

Sungyeol, somewhere between consciousness and full zombie mode, sends him the most pained, confused look of bewilderment, and he belatedly realizes it's not like Sungyeol exactly snuck away when he wasn't looking and had a nice chit chat with the woman. He mentally kicks himself, impatience on top of exhaustion leading his mind down a frantic path of confusion, and he decides to just shut up for a while.

They find a moment at the hair salon to slip away, and Sungyeol leads him down a hallway through the backdoor, far away from the omnipresent ears of a now vastly more awake Sunggyu.

"Hello? Who is this?" says an answering voice, and Woohyun sinks to his knees in pure relief.

"Yes, hello, Ms. Yoo. It's Sungyeol...I, uh, bought a spell from you yesterday and-"

"Ahhh, yes, did it work then?"

Sungyeol stares at Woohyun, and Woohyun stares back, neither sure how to answer. Woohyun waves his hand, pushing Sungyeol to say something, and Sungyeol stutters as he tries to respond.

"You see, ah, not really? I guess? It's hard to explain."

"Well, what happened?"

"I'm, uh, stuck...to someone. Not the, er, intended person, that is."

"Do you mean stuck like adhered or..."

"What? No-"

Oh my god that's even a possibility.

"-no, just like...unable to get more than a certain, very limited distance away from him."

Ms. Yoo lets out a long "ahhhhh", and Woohyun hates the sound of it, like she's surprised that this is the way the situation has turned out. Sungyeol doesn't look much better either, and Woohyun rests his forehead on his crossed arms, feeling faint for a moment.

"I see. I'm guessing this is a big concern for you then."

"A huge concern. A concern of utmost importance," Woohyun answers from the ground, and Ms. Yoo hums in response.

"Okay, I will be there shortly. See you soon!"

The line goes dead without further comment, and Woohyun and Sungyeol both stare at it, frozen still.

"How is she going to find us?" Sungyeol asks, as if Woohyun would know, and Woohyun falls forward to crumple into a ball on the ground, face pressed into his hands.

"We are so fucked."

* * *

They get to the recording station an hour before their performance, and Woohyun is so shot out he's shaking, hands tucked between knees to hide it. Sungyeol's surprisingly calm (for Sungyeol), and it's just the dead look behind his head that might give him away, but most people chalk that up to being on a comeback schedule, and no one spares him a second glance.

Almost amusingly, no one has seemed to notice that Sungyeol and Woohyun are in an extended three-legged footrace. They both learn that, besides between stuck to one another, no one can seemingly get between them either; most people just shift around them this way and that as coordis run in and out and PDs check them in, but Myungsoo makes the mistake of trying to pass through them and slams into the forcefield of their enchantment, not unlike a bird flying into a window pane. Even still, no one notices, even Myungsoo himself, blaming Myungsoo's eternal clumsiness for striking again, and Woohyun just laughs, earnestly and then hysterically, louder and louder until Sungyeol nearly picks him up and runs him out of the waiting room.

"Woohyun," Sungyeol tries, hands on his shoulders to calm him down, and he stops abruptly, all the humor of the situation gone.

"We have to tell them. It's not like we can't show them. We have to. There's literally no other way, Sungyeol."

Woohyun can see the same thoughts of his mind flash in Sungyeol's eyes, about the uproar it will cause if the two of them suddenly don't show up to a performance with no warning, especially when they were seen going in the station to begin with, and Woohyun can't even breath when Sungyeol nods reluctantly.

"We're really going to be stuck like this forever, aren't we?" Woohyun whispers for no good reason besides not wanting to come to terms with the likelihood, and somewhere over Sungyeol's shoulder, a cheerful "not necessarily" breaks them out of their reverie.

This time they fall in unison, not dragged down by one another but simply scared shitless to the point of tripping over their own feet as they try to scatter, and the witch looks down on them with the most bemused look, as if she's staring at a pile of puppies rolling over one another.

"Ah, so you got stuck with your friend, I see. Have you two been very close for a long time?"

Neither of them answer, and she reaches down to pull them up easily, possessing a strength Woohyun would not assume for a seemingly 90 pound woman. She pulls them in opposite directions, testing the confinements of their bondage, making odd noises here and there before finally clapping her hands together as if she's figured it out.

"Yes, well, this is one of the more extreme cases I've ever seen."

Woohyun doesn't know if that makes him feel worse than it should or not, because she  _sounds_  pretty positive, but those are foreboding words, and her perspective on life is obviously a little weird to begin with anyway. She looks totally calm, and he has to catch himself from making a 'come on' motion with his hand as she stares at them dreamily.

"Oh, right! Well, it is within the magic of the spell, though it really depends on who's falling in love that controls the intensity. Obviously, the love here is quite powerful but desperately needy, if you will, so that explains why you can't get away from each other. You know, because you don't  _want_  to."

Woohyun's totally mouth-agape, mind-blank, wide-eyed speechless, but Sungyeol just lets it all go without a thought.

"I'm sorry, uhm, it sounds like you're implying that we- me and him," he says, pointing an accusatory finger, "are in love with each other?" Sungyeol's voice gradually transcends any vocal range Woohyun's ever heard by the end of the sentence, just below a level that would shatter glass, and he imagines it's because Sungyeol is trying his damndest not to completely disintegrate into hysterical screaming.

"No, of course not."

"What are you saying then?"

"Just that I wasn't implying it. Both of you are certainly in love with one another, fiercely so, enough you can't even get away from each other because you want to love each other so badly that-"

That's as far as she gets before Sungyeol releases a sound Woohyun imagines is only rivaled by a tea kettle whistling into a microphone plugged into a thousand speakers tuned to the highest volume, and he's just surprised that a) people don't come running and b) that his eardrums manage to stay intact. She smiles serenely until the sounds dies out with a little sad sob, and continues right where she left off.

"-you are forcing the magic to confine you together. Once you accept it and become confident in each other, it'll will fall away quickly."

"I bought that spell with someone else in mind," Sungyeol whispers somewhere from the vicinity of the floor (Woohyun doesn't even bother looking), and the witch snorts in response.

"Well, don't blame me! Blame what's in your heart. If you loved them and they loved you, you'd be in this situation with them. But you don't." She's just so cheerful as she says this, and Woohyun manages to take it well enough, but from Sungyeol's angry noises from the floor, he's alone in that. "You love this friend of yours, a very handsome boy if I say so myself. Besides, love spells don't work with unrequited love. How wretched, chaining someone to you without their consent, kids these days get the wrong ideas from some fanciful story or TV show, but do they ever consult real witches on how these things work, no, of course not, and-"

"Okay, okay. We get it," Woohyun interrupts, eager to get to the part where they figure this shit out so he can get back to his (once normal but now irrevocably changed) life without Sungyeol hovering around him like a ill-humored giraffe that happens to speak. "So, uh, how do we fix it?"

"Simple! You just have to accept that you feel the same and want to be together, and that confidence in each other lets you breath a little easier, if you will. You two are so desperate at this point the magic is keeping you together just so you're forced to figure it out."

Woohyun kind of understands what she's saying, but looking at Sungyeol, balled up on the floor muttering mutinously to himself, Woohyun wonders if they can make this work in the 24 minutes they have left.

"What's the point, then," Sungyeol mumbles to no one in particular, "if a love spell doesn't make someone fall in love with you?"

"To make dense people realize the love's already in front of them, dear."

And with that, she disappears into thin air with a pop, and it's just Woohyun, Sungyeol, and a whole lot of awkwardness.

"You know...I don't blame you for being in love with me. But I do blame you for not saying something earlier."

"Shut the fuck up, Woohyun!"

* * *

In the end, they don't get a chance to talk it out, because Sungjong finds them, obviously trying to get to them before the managers.

"If you two don't get your dumbasses back to the waiting room, the rest of us are going to have to go up there as five because you two will be  _dead_  and I don't think we're ready for the sudden choreography change, to be quite honest."

Woohyun and Sungyeol give him an identical look of mortification, and he rolls his eyes, grabbing both of their collars as he hisses "move your asses, hyungs!", dragging them down the hallway. They slide back into the waiting room without a peep, as if they never left, and everyone's too busy running around with last minute preparations to really give them more than a moment's notice.

"We'll be okay," Woohyun whispers into Sungyeol's ear, and he's not sure when he became the consoler and not the consoled. "We'll figure it out. We'll make it work. It's going to be okay."

Woohyun feels a pressure release in his chest, and he tests the line, inching away from Sungyeol and expecting to hit the invisible wall again. It's gone, but not without a hint of a pull that grows stronger the more he steps away. He can move with practical ease, and the barrier becomes mental, not physical.

"Well, that's annoying," Woohyun says as he makes his way back to stand by Sungyeol, and Sungyeol gives him the nastiest look of distaste.

"I hate you."

"Apparently not!"

Sungyeol goes in for the kill, but the PD appears at his side, dragging him along and calling for them to make their way to the stage, and he smiles back at Sungyeol radiantly, starting to enjoy the acute tug on his heartstrings that makes Sungyeol come after him without hesitation.

* * *

In the end, everything turns out fine, and the fairytale ends, happily ever after.

Minus the part where Sungyeol almost trips on stage when Woohyun and him are at opposite ends and the pull to go back makes him weak in the knees. Or when Woohyun barricades them in his room when they get home and refuses to eat, sleep, or piss until Sungyeol spills every gory detail about when and why he fell in love.

Which he does. Eventually. But only because Woohyun forced him, not because he wanted to or anything. (And then he had to listen to Woohyun talk about the same shit from his perspective for  **two hours** , and that was worse than being glued to his side for a whole day.)

And...that was about all of the bad parts. Sungyeol liked falling asleep as 4 am, Woohyun curled in his arms. He liked the warm spread through his chest when they got close, the satiating fulfillment of loving and being loved in return. Woohyun singing in his ear and then kissing the mole right beside it. Woohyun complimenting him for no reason, making him think of himself in ways he never had before. When Woohyun talked too much, he kissed him. And when he nagged, he kissed him then, too.

Sungyeol never mentioned to Woohyun he had cast the spell with him in mind (and shit his pants when they'd ended up stuck together). He let Woohyun believe he sucked at magic, and continued jinxing Myungsoo for fun without interruption like he'd been doing for years.


End file.
